Juanita Millender-McDonald (September 7, 1938 – April 22, 2007) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1996 until her death in 2007, representing California's 37th congressional district, which includes most of South Central Los Angeles and the city of Long Beach, California.

She was also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and of the New Democrat Coalition and was considered a front-runner for the job of Secretary of Transportation if John Kerry had been elected President in 2004.

While she won a difficult nine-candidate primary in her first election run (fellow assembly member Willard Murray came in a close second) she did not face any serious opposition in any of her reelection campaigns.

In 1996, she also led an inquiry into allegations that the CIA was working with cocaine traffickers to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

[5] Within a week of her requesting a leave of absence to deal with her illness, on April 22, 2007, Millender-McDonald died in hospice care,[6][7] succumbing to colon cancer at the age of 68 at her home in Carson.